Wither ACF?

• From: brostron1
• Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 06:15:26 -0700
• Message-ID: <000TDDUVE.001LVISHQ.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

Charlie, Subash, and Tom all have interesting and
valid points. On the subject of ACF organization,
looking at its history ACF seems to always follow the
same cycle:

1. ACF seems near collapse
2. A
few dedicated people step in and do lots of
work
3. Few people come or the organizers burn out
4.
ACF seems near collapse

Perhaps this is
inevitable. ACF has never had the philosophy of asking, "What
do people want to play?" Ideally, as Tom alludes to,
it has been, "What should an intelligent,
well-educated college student with true academic knowledge
know?" Unfortunately, it is all too often, "What are the
hardest questions we can get away with asking?"

At
this point, I'm not sure if ACF hasn't outlived its
utility. At one point, it filled the vast void of
everything other than CBI in academic competition. 5 or 6
years ago, 30 or 40 teams would go to ACF Nationals,
not necessarily because they loved the format, but
they wanted to go to a national tournament. Now with
NAQT, they don't have to go, and they
don't.

Ideally, I think, ACF could be folded into NAQT. I don't
think this will ever happen. It's not so much because
of question difficulty or format. There's not that
much difference between hard NAQT and modified ACF. It
seems like more a difference of personality and
temperament among the organizers of the different formats.
That and the fact that I don't know if ACF has a lot
of assets, financial or otherwise, that NAQT would
want to take on. It carries with a somewhat
contentious legacy. It has some excellent question writers,
but they might be bulls in the china
shop.

That stated, ACF does seem to have one clear purpose.
Every year, one or two students get "turned on" by the
format's academic focus and find it to be a substantive
part of their educational development. I don't know if
that justifies all the effort, but it's good when it
happens.

Brian